


Chicken Soup for the Incredibly Fragile Human Soul

by aurevell



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: But Mostly Comfort, Established Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Fluff, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sick Stiles Stilinski, The Hale Family (Teen Wolf) Lives, adorably clueless Hale family, or i guess there's a cute attempt at it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:28:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23042521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurevell/pseuds/aurevell
Summary: Stiles comes to the Hale house to cram for a test with Cora as planned. Unfortunately, he's definitely coming down with something.Even more unfortunately, no one in the entire Hale family seems to know what to do with a human who has a cold.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski & The Hale Pack
Comments: 26
Kudos: 687





	Chicken Soup for the Incredibly Fragile Human Soul

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sure this has been done already. BUT this cold and flu season has been pretty nuts, and it somehow bled into a story idea. So have a sick!Stiles getting overwhelmed by some super worried Hale family werewolves. 
> 
> Quick context: All the Hales are alive, the fire never happened, Stiles is a high school junior dating Derek and is best friends with Cora. None of the extended family Hales are humans. Also, Stiles knows they’re all werewolves because reasons.

Stiles should probably have known better than to come over to the Hale house with a cold coming on.

The Hales have been the _tiniest_ bit leery of him health-wise, ever since he burned the side of his hand helping Laura get a batch of cookies out of the oven a while back. And because after that, he ended up with bloody scratches literally all over his calves from the thorny undergrowth in the preserve. And because after _that_ , he somehow managed to trip _up_ the front steps of the house and skin both knees. (But hey—Derek was helping to haul the new porch swing up by its chain, and those arm muscles had Stiles justifiably distracted. You could almost say it was Derek’s fault the whole thing went down.)

They’ve started stocking, for the first time in Hale history most likely, an actual first-aid kit in their pantry. Just in case.

It’s not like the Hales have never been around humans before. Or like werewolves don’t know that random illnesses occasionally put people out of commission. After all, Talia’s the district attorney. Her husband Lucas does landscaping for half the town. Peter’s a financial planner. The whole mess of them and their siblings and kids have worked or gone to school here in Beacon Hills, right alongside humans, since birth. 

But it’s kind of one thing to know _in theory_ that people get sick, and another to have an actual live human being all gross and sick in front of you. The kind of sick that usually makes people remove themselves from the public eye. And Stiles has felt this stupid cold creeping up on him all freaking day.

Unfortunately, Stiles also has a chemistry exam that’s threatening to kick his ass, and he and Cora have been planning to cram for it together all week. And whatever’s going down with his annoying, itchy throat is nothing compared to how crappy he’ll feel for failing because he decided to take a power nap instead. 

Of course, that doesn’t keep Cora from giving him the side-eye the whole ride over from school. “What’s going on with you?” she finally asks as they start spreading their notes across her bedroom floor. “You’ve barely said a word in the last five minutes. Even to swoon over Derek like a dork when we came in.”

“Throat ache,” he says shortly, rubbing his neck a little. In truth, it’s kind of turning into an ache that goes a little deeper than that, a heat that burns up into his jaw and radiates out toward his ears as well.

“Wow, is that all it takes to get some peace and quiet around here?” Cora jokes. He flips her off and settles onto his stomach on the carpet.

But somewhere in the hours between organizing note cards and highlighting paragraphs, his throat goes from pained to downright irritated. 

He coughs a little every now and then, which only serves to make the throbbing behind his ears grow even worse. Cora jumps a little each time he does it, before feigning nonchalance. Stiles even catches her younger brother Caleb peering around the side of the door, probably having heard Stiles trying to hack out a lung from his room across the hall. And oh yeah, that whole werewolf super-hearing thing probably means that everyone in the house can hear him doing it, Stiles realizes guiltily.

“Are you okay?” Cora finally asks bluntly, rolling over onto her elbow to look at him.

“I’m good.”

“Maybe you should go to sleep or something?” she says, though it comes out like a question. “Isn’t that what they tell you to do when you’re sick?”

“Only if you don’t still have fun stuff to do like memorizing your notes on covalent bonding,” Stiles replies, pushing himself to his feet. “But yeah, I’m gonna take a break. Get some water. You want some?”

“You could just sleep over tonight,” she tells him dubiously. “Then we could wake up early and finish in the morning before class. Or I could bring you home to get some…I dunno, medicine or whatever?”

“Nah, I don’t think we’re stocked with anything that could help me ride this out anyway. And besides, dude, this cold is not the boss of me. I’ll be back in a bit.”

He goes downstairs yawning, which he blames on the fact that Cora put the idea of sleep into his head. It’s the time of the evening when the adults are all home but still kind of half-working: the door to Peter’s office is closed, and Stiles can hear Talia on the phone with someone downstairs. Lucas and Margot both often collapse into bed after a busy day, so the house is pretty quiet. 

Derek’s play-wrestling his kid cousin Eli on the living room carpet in front of the TV, but his head jerks up when Stiles steps in.

“Hey,” he says, picking the toddler up to set him on his feet.

“Hey,” Stiles replies, but he dissolves into a fit of coughing and has to retreat into the kitchen for that glass of water. Derek hovers in the doorway, looking pained, as Stiles gulps it down. “I’m good,” Stiles repeats when he recovers.

“You don’t sound like it,” Derek replies doubtfully. 

“I mean, if you want to help, I wouldn’t say no to cuddles on the couch while you work your werewolf mojo.”

Derek snorts at this, but he allows Stiles to manhandle him into place on the cushions so that Stiles can clamber over him, half on his lap. He puts his head on Derek’s chest, and Derek rests his hand on Stiles’s throat, stroking the skin just below his jawline with his thumb. Instantly, the pain recedes. 

“Aw, yeah,” Stiles murmurs happily, feeling Derek’s chest rumble a little beneath him in a quiet laugh. His soothing magic does its work a little too well, because Stiles finds his eyes slipping shut of their own accord as his brain turns to mush.

~*~

He wakes some interminable time later in another coughing fit. His throat is on fire again, each cough seeming to scrape its way out of his chest in the most painful way possible.

He’s also insanely hot, like summer-sauna hot. Which makes sense, because on his way up to a sitting position, he has to struggle out from under approximately twelve blankets. Something falls off his forehead as he makes his way upright: a neatly folded wet washcloth. 

Stiles stares at it blearily for a long minute. Then he turns to find himself being observed by the youngest Hale kids, Willa and Hailey and Eli, who seem to be in the middle of a weirdly quiet game of UNO.

“What’s this?” he asks, his voice scratchy.

“You’re sick,” Hailey replies, a nervous warble in her tone. “Laura and Derek said you have to be covered up.”

Stiles picks up the washcloth and sets it aside. “Uh. Okay.” He clears his throat, rubbing at his aching ears. “Where are they?”

“They had to go to the store.”

Stiles nods, coughing again. He actually _does_ feel pretty warm, and kind of disgustingly sweaty, but there’s no telling if the blankets have anything to do with it. His glass of water is nowhere to be found, so he tries to worm his way out of the blankets. Willa shrieks a little.

“Don’t!” she exclaims. “Lay back down!”

He rolls his eyes, ready to protest that he has way too much to do to let a cold kick his ass (well, _butt_ —she’s only six), only then he starts coughing again. “Could you get me some water?” he asks. Hailey dutifully goes, bringing back an overfull glass of water which he greedily swallows down. “Ugh. I’m freaking dying.”

For some reason, this makes both Willa and Eli burst into tears. A second later, he has an armful of two hysterical werewolves. Hailey looks on in horror, eyes flashing a little in agitation.

“What—why are—?” is all Stiles can manage between coughs.

“I don’t want you to die!” Eli wails, and Stiles slowly realizes his mistake. In the Stilinski household, his exaggeration is kind of a running joke designed to make his dad roll his eyes and toss a bottle of Dayquil at his head. In the Hale household, it’s apparently enough to make the youngest wolves come to terms with his human fragility.

“Hey, hey, I’m not _actually_ dying. I swear. I’m sorry, it’s just a joke.” 

“It’s a bad joke!” Eli shouts, and there’s a tiny bit of a snarl in it. His little pink face is all twisted up. “It’s mean!”

Stiles hugs him again. “You’re right, little dude. I’m the worst,” he agrees, flopping back down with Eli still on his chest. “What do you say we strip off like ninety-five percent of these blankets, and I’ll be a good patient and go back to sleep?”

Hailey, again being weirdly obedient instead of her usual excitable self, pulls the blankets away and disappears upstairs with them. Eli and Willa, still a bit teary, curl into his side. Stiles is so tired that he manages to ignore their sharp little elbows and knobby knees as sleep drags him back down.

~*~

This time, the distant sound of voices is what pulls Stiles slowly back to waking. 

“…promise you, it’s chicken noodle soup. That’s what people are supposed to have. It’s the classic thing or whatever.”

“But it’s a _throat_ thing, Laura. He’s coughing all the time.”

“Are you sure it isn’t the flu? The flu is where people cough a lot, and sleep a lot—”

“We don’t know if he has a fever yet, so…” 

Stiles grumbles low in his throat, forgetting for a second how raw it is. He’s hot again. His forehead is cool. When he wearily puts his hand to his forehead, he pulls away another wet washcloth on it. The mountain of blankets is back. “What the fuck,” he says weakly, shivering. 

The argument in the kitchen continues. He can definitely hear Derek and Laura in there, and Cora too. Talia’s voice surprises him: “Maybe we should just ask _Stiles_ what the best remedy is.”

Stiles struggles to get out of the blankets again, coughing a little, which catches the attention of the wolves. Laura comes out of the kitchen, a frown carved into her face. Derek and Cora trail behind her, and Talia leans against the door frame. Eli and Hailey come from the stairway to sit on the coffee table nearby.

“Dude,” Stiles says dimly, overwhelmed by the sheer number of eyes on him. “This is one hundred percent not a big deal.”

“Yeah, but you said the same thing back when Caleb tackled you too hard and literally sprained your wrist,” Cora counters.

Imperiously, Laura sticks a hand on his forehead. Then she frowns more deeply. “I don’t know how your head normally feels,” she says helplessly. “How is this supposed to help? Am I doing it wrong?”

Stiles snorts out a laugh at this, though it turns into more coughing. “I don’t think anyone actually knows,” he says, still chuckling. Cora darts into the kitchen and then comes back out to approach him. “Look, guys, it’s—”

Before he can finish, Cora takes the opportunity to jab something into his mouth. “That’s what the thermometer’s for,” she tells Laura, rolling her eyes.

Stiles sighs but presses it under his tongue anyway. “Am I no longer an active participant in my own healthcare?” Stiles mutters around it.

“No,” Laura and Cora say in unison, glaring at each other. 

Derek, the traitor, is holding back laughter over their shoulders. He does, however, disappear into the kitchen to return with another glass of water, so Stiles internally forgives him. “We have some stuff in the kitchen if you want,” he says, setting the glass down within reach for when the thermometer’s done. He settles on the arm of the sofa so that Stiles can lean into him. “We didn’t really know what you needed, so…”

The thermometer beeps, and Stiles trades it out for the water glass. “Stuff like what?”

Derek’s reply is drowned out by Cora’s surprised noise as she takes the thermometer. “You’re—you’re really, really cold? I thought you’d have a fever!” she adds accusingly.

Stiles frowns. He _has_ been sort of getting the shivers, but he’s feeling hot more than anything else. “Maybe it’s ‘cause of the washcloth or something. Why was there a washcloth anyway?”

“For—I don’t know, people always put washcloth on their heads on like, TV and stuff. Stiles, this seems really bad.”

“What is it?”

“Ninety-nine point nine.”

Stiles frowns, coughing and rubbing his throat. “That’s…not awesome. And I guess I’m gonna have to see how terrible I feel in the morning. But I’m okay right now.”

" _Okay_? Wait—what’s the normal temperature?”

“Ninety-eight point six. Supposedly. But, fun fact, that number’s actually outdated and human body temperatures on average are cooler than they were a century ago.” He pauses, looking at Cora’s relieved expression. “Why?”

“Werewolves must run hotter. I was looking for a hundred and two. Ish.”

“Geez, you freaks of nature,” Stiles retorts tiredly, sipping his water down.

“Do you need anything, Stiles?” Talia asks, quirking a smile as she folds her hands over her chest. “We apparently now have a great selection of both food and medicine.”

“We weren’t exactly sure what to get you,” Laura adds sheepishly.

“So we figured whatever you don’t use, we can keep in case you get sick again.”

In spite of the fact that he feels like a disgusting sack of mucus and raw irritation under the gazes of way too many people, Stiles can’t help but grin. “Aw, you guys are the best. But, uh, you also don’t even know what’s wrong with me really? So, you got…?”

“Chicken noodle soup, oranges, vitamin C tablets, a _bunch_ of medicine for like, fever and chest congestion and coughing and sneezing…”

“I texted them to get the oranges,” Cora chimes in hopefully. “And vitamin C tablets.” 

“But it’s chicken noodle soup for a cold,” Laura argues. “Or…the flu?”

Stiles looks at Derek, amused. The werewolf ducks his head. “Medicine seemed like the most practical thing. And there were ones for specific things like coughing, so…”

“That’s—yeah,” Stiles says weakly, shrinking a little under the intensity of the girls’ gazes. “Uh, honestly, it all sounds really amazing and I might need it depending on how bad this thing gets, but right now the thing that would be awesome is some of that ginger tea Peter makes sometimes, with a little honey, if that’s okay.”

“I win,” Peter says smugly from somewhere over his shoulder. Stiles jumps a little, realizing the werewolf has come downstairs without making a sound.

“You didn’t even suggest anything when we asked,” Cora protests, laughing.

“It’s my tea, isn’t it?” Peter insists triumphantly, heading off somewhere in the back of the house. 

Looking only slightly betrayed, Laura rolls her eyes and strides into the kitchen to make said tea. 

“So…you’re gonna be okay,” Hailey confirms warily.

“Dude, I’m gonna be fine. It’ll just suck for a little while,” he adds, clearing his throat.

“How long?” Cora wonders.

“Dunno. It depends. Couple days, probably.”

“This happens for a couple _days_?” Hailey demands, her dark eyes going wide.

“Oh for sure. I already have so much mucus in me, you don’t even know.”

“Gross,” Cora insists, looking disgusted. “Look, you’re obviously staying over tonight since there’s no medicine at your house. And since your dad’s on shift.“

“Plus then I can’t get him sick,” Stiles adds. Laura comes in with a steaming cup of tea, which Stiles accepts gratefully, and then she disappears into the kitchen.

“Well, I guess if you don’t go to school tomorrow, you might be able to persuade me to tell you what makes it onto the test,” Cora tells him. 

“Yeah, but Harris is gonna make my life a nightmare if I miss that exam.”

“He certainly will not,” Talia tells him primly. “I’ll call in the morning.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Trust me,” Talia adds, a gleam in her eye as she disappears upstairs. “I’ve had to deal with Adrian Harris before.” 

“Huh,” Stiles says slowly, considering. “Welp. Either way, I think I’m gonna go somewhere people can’t attack me with blankets anymore.” He manages to get back to his feet with only a little help from Derek, and the two of them leave the others behind in the living room to head upstairs to Derek’s room.

Really, Stiles just wants to get away from all the anxious stares, and he also wouldn’t mind napping some more, and he also wouldn’t mind napping with Derek next to him either. He flops onto Derek’s bed. Derek stands over him, quirking his head, and then he presses his hand to Stiles’s throat again. Just as before, the ache goes away.

Stiles groans, coughing again. “Yes, please.” He grabs Derek’s sleeve and insistently tugs him down into the bed. 

“Bossy,” Derek laughs.

“Dude, I never really thought about it,” Stiles says, scooting closer to press kisses into the corner of Derek’s mouth, “but it’s super nice that you can’t get sick off of me and we can still do this anyway.”

“You were literally just talking about how much mucus you have in you,” Derek complains, but Stiles can feel him smiling as he angles his mouth toward Stiles to deepen the kiss.

 _Technically_ , there’s a guest room Stiles uses when he stays over, and _technically_ there’s that super old-fashioned rule where he and Derek can’t stay in Derek’s room with the door closed. But in practice, Stiles figures the Hales might bend the rule for now, especially since no one’s getting it on when Stiles is dying of a cold in the grossest possible way. (And everyone could hear them, because werewolf hearing is kind of the worst sometimes.)

And so, just this once, Stiles just snuggles more deeply into the blankets, letting himself fall asleep as the honey tea and Derek’s clever fingers work their magic.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and may you be blessed with a small pack of doting people whenever you're sick this cold season!


End file.
